Table Of Content
Description
Algorithms are designed to solve a problem but cannot be directly implemented by the computer. A computer can only execute machine language instructions. Machine language instruction in binary coded language can be easily executed. To remember codes for different operations of a machine language is highly difficult. Thus, high-level languages can be used to implement algorithms. A compiler is software which converts a high level language to machine language. It converts the source program to object program.
High-Level language Translation
This can be shown by a diagram as follows:
Basic Programming language Preliminaries
Any programming language is divided into two distinct parts. These parts are described as:-
- Syntax – They are the rules which are to be followed to form structures which are grammatically correct with respect to the programming language used.
- Semantics – It assigns meanings to syntactic structures.
Writing basic programs
Writing a program to find area of a circle would be as
Formula to calculate Area of a circle is,
A = Πr2
Where r = radius of the circle
In ‘C’ language, multiplication operator is ‘* ’
Therefore Area (A)
A = Π * r * r ….. (1)
Eqn (1) is called an Arithmetic statement in programming terminology
‘A ‘and ‘r’ are variables, values ‘Π ’ is a constant value 3.14.
Before execution (memory location)
After Execution
Program:
void main ( )
{
unit r; A
float A;
r = 1;
A = 3.14 * r * r;
}
To read and understand the program, comments are used. It describes the program.
Types of comments in ‘C’
a) Single line comment
b) Multiple line comment
a) Single-line Comment – It is preceded by double slash ( // ) and cannot exceed a line
Example: –
int a; // declaration of an integer
b) Multi-line Comment – It consists of sequence of characters beginning with a forward slash ‘/’ asterisk combination (/*) that is treated as a single whitespace character by the compiler else it is ignored. It can inclined any combination of characters even ‘/n ‘excluding delimiter (*/).One should note that comments cannot be nested.
Example:-
/* Comments can also be given like this */.